Is Italy One Of the Worst European Countries to be a Child?

A new report on the status of Italy's children by Save the Children cites worsening poverty and increasingly high drop-out rates as reasons that Italy is currently one of the "worst places to be a child in Europe," with more than 720,000 children across the country living in poverty today, according to the Daily Beast. 

The new Save the Children initiative, known as a "Childhood Alarm," provides statistics on the risk of poverty in Italian children, claiming that "1 in 3 children" in the country are at risk, and that 18 percent of children are school drop-outs. According to the report, 40 percent of young people are out of work, and "many fail to form a family or leave" their parent's home after becoming adults.

According to the Daily Beast, in practical terms these statistics mean that those children who are at risk of poverty "do not have enough food to eat; they lack proper health care including vital vaccines and standard hearing and eyesight checks; and, in many cases, they don't go to school, or if they do, they are often too hungry or distracted to concentrate." In addition, these children are focused on surviving, rather than enjoying their lives and childhoods.

On Monday, Save the Children staged protests in 16 Italian cities to draw attention to these grim statistics, marching in front of well-known monuments including the leaning tower of Pisa. Children were given signs to hold out for onlookers to see, "life-sized red cardboard cutouts of impoverished children their own age" with messages like "My future has been stolen" and "My food has been stolen." These shock initiatives will run through June 5 in an effort to create a wake-up call to the country's politicians.

"We are afraid for the future of the children of this country," said Valerio Neri of Save the Children Italy. "Looking at all the indicators, the outlook for Italian children is extremely negative." 

Italy currently ranks seven times below the national European average on "12 standard childhood socioeconomic indicators," including access to nutrition, education, future employment prospects, social inclusion and overall economic outlooks. The problem is in part due to Italy's current economic recession, which has severely dehabilitated the nation, and according to the new report, one-in-five school age Italians (18 percent of adolescents) drop out of school after middle school at around age 14 to either work in the black market or their family's businesses, or to help care for younger children.

Among the list of states that Save the Children claim fail to invest in amenities for children, Italy ranks 22 out of 27, with only two out of 10 children currently attending public daycare and preschool, as Italian parents often cannot find work due to lack of adequate daycare.  In addition, many Italian families are too poor to afford their children basic opportunities such as access to the Internet, computers, sports and even books.

Parents were asked to write messages about their children's future to be posted on Save the Children Italy's initiative website.

"Children are the purest beings that exist," one parent wrote. "They have the right to live a peaceful life, and above all we have the right to do the impossible in order to fulfill their dreams."